Dear Leviathan - Edit

[dukealien]

Edit 1;

Dear Leviathan


Plump hippopotamus demure and cute,
seductively stealth-swimming half-submerged,
whose baby-fat proportions strike us mute -
her winsome smile infects us, caution purged.
We love our hippo, chuckle at her girth,
her rolling clumsiness, her comic ears;
we marvel at her underwater birth,
her teary, piggy eyes that shame our fears.
She trots to catch and crush us though we dote;
her smile hides fangs like scimitars, bone-pale,
with which she hooks us when she flips a boat
and drowns us, river aunt of killer whale.
    Beloved hippo, gross embodiment -
    how like she is to nanny-government!

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Thanks to all the excellent critics.  The above edit addresses some of the criticisms, other changes are just.. changes.

In a spirit of offering facts, not explaining...

While researching, discovered some pictures of hippos with mouths wide open - a threat gesture - with those *antlers* on display.  Cartoon hippos have little pegs like zoo hippos - they're cut off at the root, presumably to keep them from wounding each other or the keepers.

Also surprised to learn that, evolution-wise (on present understanding) the hippo's nearest living relatives are, indeed, the whales.  Back in the great mammalian explosion to fill all the niches vacated by departed dinosaurs, something like a hippo went to sea; whales still have vestigial leg bones from when they filled in for mososaurs, plesiosaurs, and such.  Calling the hippo their "aunt" rather than "cousin" is old-fashioned in that it places the hippo on a branch of the tree of life one or more splits before the whales, whereas the more current/correct bush-of-life places all extant forms on a surface of the present - a topiary, not a tree.  Hippos and whales had a common ancestor, but both are modern.

@nibbed - "Dear Leviathan" is in the nature of a title rather than a salutation.  See, for example, "Dear Leader" which refers to a particular head of state   <--- that emoticon is more graphically descriptive than usual and quite Un-intended.

Final gee-whiz discovered while researching:  a Colombian drug lord, taking his anti-legal responsibilities in a big way, illegally imported a breeding pair.  When his operation was destroyed, they escaped (evidence bags in that size are hard to find) and there were, at last count, over forty living in the wild.  Talk about no natural enemies... jaguar rug, anyone?